In my mind, computer programming and computer science are different things, but get confused by people because they share a name. Computer programming, I find, is more about structuring and designing a program. Computer science is more about algorithms and fundamental limits of computation.

That's not to say they don't overlap in theory or in practice of either. However, the opinion held by one depends on the work (or play) that they do.

If you mostly build blogs, consumer apps, desktop apps, scripts, then you spend most of your time structuring programs, and occasionally have to delve into algorithms. I suspect you don't think a CS degree is required.

If you mostly do computer vision, AI, image processing, databases, networking, then you probably spend most of your time fiddling with algorithms and less time structuring and designing programs. I suspect you're more likely to think a CS degree is required you do.

Not that one is better than another. Just different experience in what one does with a computer gives different perceptions. Game programmers seem to break the mold.

And if you do scientific programming, you think CS and programming is a tradesman's job, and your program is one long main() nested 11 levels deep with if/else and case statements. (har har)